There is no easy way to describe this film. David Fincher, once again, has directed an incredible movie that cannot be ignored. As with many of his previous films (The Game, Seven) you either love it, or hate it. There is no middle ground. It is interesting to see how the same movie can have a profoundly different impact depending on the viewer. Fight Club demonstrates the newest generation gap in movies.

Older filmgoers probably share the opinion of Roger Ebert who regarded this film, at best, as bad. There will be those that cannot get past the violence in the film (for which it is named). That is understandable. They probably consider Fight Club base and unrefined. This is true to a certain extent, but hidden beneath the rough exterior is a profound look at modern existence. I think most of the people who do not like this movie, felt so because they learned something about themselves – something they did not like. Fight Club attacks our sense of well being because it attacks our purpose for existence. This film points how pointless a life can be when materialism defines who we are. Most of the older generations are content to spend their life in mediocrity, pursuing material satisfaction and letting others do the thinking for them.

However, the younger generations, being raised into this existence, are more likely to become aware of this trivial way of life. We are discovering the emptiness modern definitions of “success” can bring. This is not to say the younger generations are not mediocre or materialistic. We are. But we are more likely to admit it and be willing to find something more meaningful in life. This is the true essence of Fight Club. It is the misguided search to define ones existence by giving up creature comforts and the notion that we can all be superstars. It is the search to find something real.

What, in this profound search for meaning in our dreary lives, is the purpose of showing Tyler splicing single frames of pornography into children’s movies or peeing in soup? Entertainment, my friends.

This movie has it all: philosophy, action and comedy all presented in a visually stunning format. I believe this is the second greatest film of all time (you can guess at the first).

I’m going to challenge your statement that “Most of the older generations are content to spend their life in mediocrity, pursuing material satisfaction and letting others do the thinking for them.” Empirically, I have to say that your stament there is just plain wrong. From what I can see, society is getting far more materialistic, not less so. Older people are far more likely to realize that stuff is just stuff, where as younger folks still worship at the alter of their cars, houses, computers, and/or toys. Older people do not like this film because of the approach that it takes to materialism. Istead of rejecting it in favor of spirituality or something “good”, the film glorifies rejecting materialism in favor of anarchy. I am reminded of “The Man Who Was Thursday.” Both the protagonist and the antagonist had common ground in that they did not like where society was headed, but their approaches to the problem were polar oposites.

In blatant contradiction to your hypothesis, I thought that Fight Club was just “Meh, okay.” But I have grown up in a culture that is either materialistic or dreary. Thus I am desensitized to it. Violence does not throw me (though I think that it should). Materialism only mildly depresses me. And anarchy has this sad romanticism that I kind of like, but know is a dead end road.

The problem with anarchy, is that it rejects materialism, but fills the void left behind with nothing. It substitutes a fake emptiness with a real emptiness. The search stops there, because the anarchist philosophy holds that there is nothing real to replace materialism.

One of the worst movies ever made and one of the worst movies i’ve ever seen! this grotesque, appalling, endurance test is fairytale fiction for serial killers, morons that seek something for their hair triggered tempers.